SAS controller for use with LTO-4 Tape drive?

[C0RR0SIVE]

That would be a heck lot more promising(actually perfect for his needs), especially since if they DO go with the tape option, the SAS controller has to support external connectivity and only x8 and x16 SAS controllers (which cost a few hundred alone minimum) have that, a few of the x4 controllers do as well, but there are few choices there, x1 controllers barely even get 1 internal port. Sad that there's nothing really out there for x1 slots that makes them useful, why they even exist is beyond me.

 

[mikee]

would the hard drives be good for long term storage? We only need this backup one time then nothing more would be done with the drives. Also I did find a place that has that tape drive for 600$ refurbished just in case you guys are looking at the links that list in in the thousands

 

[-RockMan-]

would the hard drives be good for long term storage? We only need this backup one time then nothing more would be done with the drives. Also I did find a place that has that tape drive for 600$ refurbished just in case you guys are looking at the links that list in in the thousands

Let me ask you this, what kind of videos does your company archive ?
If its interview videos, ad videos, reporting, documenting about whatever with the company..
I could see why they would need it, especially if they do it for many years.
Some media has sensitive info that can't be lossed or leaked by accident.

Now if it is for documents financial records and whatever company enterprise stuff thats too big to loose.
I see why they would want a tape drive, in my opinion I wouldn't bother with the tape drive.

WD Purple WD60PURX 6TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Surveillance Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com
This would be a great way to start, yes I read the product description and I do think that would be good for 2 of them.
Least 12 terabytes of it, that should do you quite easily.
Your only issue is finding someone competent to operate the server correctly so it'll last a long time even when your gone
.

 

[mikee]

i work in the distance education department at my university we need the this for archiving pre recorded lectures we already have about 30TB of footage that needs backing up

 

[PP Mguire]

HDDs are fine for archival as long as you have a good place to store them.

 

[-RockMan-]

i work in the distance education department at my university we need the this for archiving pre recorded lectures we already have about 30TB of footage that needs backing up

Ok then I see why you need the capacity to store all of that.
The drive I linked if you bought 5 of them you would have 32 terabytes total.
Wait for corrisive to drop in and see what he thinks and if linking them up would be easy without much hassle.

I didn't think this request was going turn into a three thousand dollars+ server need.
We'll see how it plays out, considering the price and main needs.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

I honestly would not recommend raiding anything over 4TB per disk really... IF Mikee DID go with the HDD storage route using 6TB or even the more costly 8TB disks, even if they was using some fancy form of raid like Raid 6 or 0+1 or 1+0 or even 1+5, rebuild success rates plummet due to each drives own error correction. I forgot what exactly happens, but apparently once you start going above even 2TB, rebuilding arrays properly if drives do fail can be almost impossible, and it has to do with some sort of old standard for how many bad bits of this or that is acceptable or something another. I just know from experience, rebuilding large arrays (4TB per disk) is difficult, 6TB disks make it nearly impossible, 8TB disks, I am willing to bet that no one puts into RAID till manufactures get tighter standards for error recovery.

RAID is out of the question, but for archival, if the disks are being used separately, they would work perfectly fine.

In the end, Mikee, these are your basic options.

Build a new system that has a good x8 PCI-e slot, then obtain a SAS controller that has the proper external connection for the tape drive your looking at.
$400 or so for the system?
$200+ for the SAS controller
$??? for tapes
$600 for the tape drive

Build a new fairly cheap system that has several SATA ports on it that are compatible with 6TB disks, and skip the SAS controller since this is a one-time backup.
$600ish for the system
$424 per 6TB disk (looking at these as they are enterprise grade, though warranty sucks... WD Purples might be better, and are cheaper, Seagate ST6000NM0024 6TB 7200 RPM 128MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Enterprise Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com )

I honestly didn't think we was talking over a few TB worth of storage as I never see tapes above 2TB in capacity, personally I have one tape drive here, and a tape, it's only 1.4TB and backing up to it, and restoring data from it takes all day/night. In this case, long-term, tapes would be better, just pray you never have to restore from tape, especially with this much data. Either case, a new system will be required IMO.

So, OP, you still wanna go tape? If so, this is pretty much the only "cheap" SAS controller you can get that should support the tape drive. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118143
Next in line would be this, but I have no experience with Areca as they tend to be VERY costly, so this card being cheap worries me, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151101

Before you go ordering a SAS controller, see if you can find some specs on the external connection of that tape drive, there are different types of external AND internal SAS connections. From what little I can find it LOOKS like the tape drive uses a SFF-8088

I honestly can't find much for that tape drive online, seems Dell doesn't have much about it published.

One last thing to note, with THAT much data, your going to have what, 18 tapes or so? You should seriously consider the storage location for those tapes, something that can block magnetic fields, because tapes can and do get corrupted just like floppy disks from even weak EMI and weak magnetic fields, where as an HDD needs something a bit stronger to corrupt the data, but with the HDD, just sitting for years on end can cause it to fail (I have yet to see a disk fail this way) due to the metal "welding" together, such as the bearings in the motor seizing to the casing due to slight differences in the metals. But they do make special cases for storing tapes, and HDDS that protect against EMI/Magnetics/moisture for archival purposes.

 

[carnageX]

One last thing to note, with THAT much data, your going to have what, 18 tapes or so? You should seriously consider the storage location for those tapes, something that can block magnetic fields, because tapes can and do get corrupted just like floppy disks from even weak EMI and weak magnetic fields, where as an HDD needs something a bit stronger to corrupt the data, but with the HDD, just sitting for years on end can cause it to fail (I have yet to see a disk fail this way) due to the metal "welding" together, such as the bearings in the motor seizing to the casing due to slight differences in the metals. But they do make special cases for storing tapes, and HDDS that protect against EMI/Magnetics/moisture for archival purposes.

Faraday cage ftw!

Sent from my HTC One

 

[-RockMan-]

One last thing to note, with THAT much data, your going to have what, 18 tapes or so? You should seriously consider the storage location for those tapes, something that can block magnetic fields, because tapes can and do get corrupted just like floppy disks from even weak EMI and weak magnetic fields, where as an HDD needs something a bit stronger to corrupt the data, but with the HDD, just sitting for years on end can cause it to fail (I have yet to see a disk fail this way) due to the metal "welding" together, such as the bearings in the motor seizing to the casing due to slight differences in the metals. But they do make special cases for storing tapes, and HDDS that protect against EMI/Magnetics/moisture for archival purposes.

Let me ask you this about hard drive tempatures, I've been using WD since 2006.
The drives in my system now, they work good in cold and warm locations.
if my room temps is 39 degrees cold, my drives will slow down and wine.
When its above that tempature and not past 89 degrees in my room they carry on perfectlly.

In his situation What would be the best way to keep his hard drives in a neturalized tempature state during daily operation ?

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Well if they are in active use, a good HVAC system and plenty of fans...? I have had drive temps exceed 55C for WD disks in the past and nothing seriously bad happened long-term. Whine from disks is usually from the bearings and fluid around them. Wait, why is your room getting that freaking cold? XD

If they are in "cold" (not turned on, just sitting) storage, most disks can handle -40C to 80C from what few warranty and spec sheets I have read.

As for the Faraday Cage... you know that those ARE actively used right? XD